50 Survey Questions To Better Learn About Your Customers

When creating a customer survey, it helps to have some examples of effective questions other companies have used in their surveys.

That’s why we created this list of 50 survey question examples, broken down by category based on the type of survey you’d like to create. We’ve also included an explanation for how each question can be helpful given your desired goal.

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Product-Fit
Survey Questions

Use these product-fit questions to help identify your customers and the benefits they receive from your product or service. These questions can also help you create marketing copy that speaks to your customer’s needs, wants, and pain points.

1. What is the primary benefit that you have received from (product or service name)?

This question will help identify what your customers value most from your product or service. Knowing this information can help you craft more effective marketing copy based on this value.

2. What are the top three benefits you get from (product or service name)?

Again, this information can be used to identify the top benefits your customers receive from your product. You can then use their answers as you write landing or product pages—instead of just assuming what these benefits are.

3. How would you feel if you could no longer use (product or service name)? Why?

This is a question is meant to measure product-market fit.

4. What would you likely use as an alternative to (product or company name) if it were no longer available?

This question will help to identify your biggest competitors as seen by your customers. It can also be used to create copy that positions your product as a better alternative than your competitor’s product. For example, creating a blog post titled, “Your Product vs. Competitor’s Product” or simply including a quick comparison on your product features page.

5. Have you recommended (product or company name) to anyone? If so, how did you describe it?

This question will let you know if people refer your product or service and what language they use to describe it to others. Knowing the type of language and words customers use to describe your product can help you craft more effective marketing copy.

6. What other roles or titles besides yours do you think would get a big benefit from (product or service name)?

This question can help to identify new potential target customers.

7. How could we improve (product or company name) to better meet your needs?

This question will help you identify opportunities for improvement. It can also help you identify reasons customers may not choose your product. Knowing this can allow you to craft copy that addresses these issues before customers choose another product.

8. At what point would this product/service get expensive but still be worth it?

This question will help determine the value of your product or service.

9. What problem were you trying to solve when you initially came across our product or service?

This question will help you identify your customers’ pain points. Knowing customer pain points will allow you to address them in your marketing copy. For example, if your customer came across your product as a means of trying to save time, you can mention how your product will save them X hours a day by doing Y.

10. What’s holding you back from using (product or company name)?

This question will help identify what keeps customers from making a purchase and allow you to address those issues head-on. If a customer complains the price is too high, you may need to adjust your pricing or work to show how your product is valuable and worth the price.

Market Research
Survey Questions

Use these market research questions to help you identify what customers value most in their life or their career. Knowing this can help you identify key points to focus on your landing page copy—or simply help you create content your audience may enjoy.

11. What’s the biggest challenge you currently face in your role?

This question can help you to address the customer’s challenges through landing page copy or helpful blog posts. It can also help to identify future products or features.

12. What are your 3-6 month goals in your role?

This question can be used to create content that will help your customers reach their goals.

13. What’s the biggest stress in your job?

This question will identify your customer’s biggest pain points. This information can be used to identify product fit, craft copy that caters to these pain points, or develop future products.

14. What are the biggest obstacles to achieving your goals?

This question can be used to create marketing copy that demonstrates how your product or service helps to eliminate these obstacles.

15. What’s your biggest challenge when it comes to X industry?

Again, this question will identify what features to focus on in your marketing copy and demonstrate how your product addresses them.

16. What would hold you back from making a purchasing decision?

This question can help to identify what the customer values most when making a purchasing decision. If the answer is “The price is too high,” you’ll know customers are highly concerned with pricing when purchasing a product like yours.

17. What features or values to do you look for when purchasing from a company?

Similar to the question above, this question will identify what customers value most when making a purchasing a decision. It could be strong customer support, future development, or helpful resources such as step-by-step support articles, videos, blog posts, etc.

18. If you were to hire someone for your position, what skills would they need?

This question will identify the skills that customers think are the most valuable in their position. Knowing this information can help you create content that helps customers build these skills.

19. Do you tend to stick with the same brand for most of the products you buy?

This question will identify if your target customers tend to stick with one brand and how tough it may be to win them over from a competitor’s product.

20. What might cause you to switch from one product or brand to another?

This question ties in with the previous question. It can help you identify what key points customers value in a particular product or brand–and how you can capitalize on that to sway a competitor's customer to your product.

Online Habits
Survey Questions

These questions will help you determine how customers use the internet and where they spend most of their time online. Knowing this can help identify advertising opportunities, social networks to utilize, and the marketing channels most worthy of your time, money, and energy.

21. Where do you go for advice on X industry?

This question will identify the blogs, media outlets, and even influencers your audience turns to for advice. Knowing this can help you identify advertising or partnership opportunities.

22. What other company or industry blogs do you read in this space?

Again, this question will identify the blogs that your customers follow regularly. There may be an opportunity for advertising on these blogs. Additionally, by looking at these blogs, you can identify the type of content your audience enjoys.

23. What people do you trust most for advice on X topic?

This question can identify what influencers or well-known figures in your industry your customers trust most. There may be an opportunity for sponsorship with some of these figures.

24. When you think about X industry, what people or companies come to mind?

This question can help to identify the top players (or competitors) in your industry as seen by your customers.

25. What publications, newspapers or magazines do you read on a weekly/monthly basis?

This question can help identify the physical media your customers subscribe to. There may be advertising opportunities in these publications.

26. When looking for a product or solution, where do you search first (Google, Bing, Amazon, etc.)?

This question will identify where your customers go to search for a product.

27. What social media networks do you use regularly?

This question will identify which social networks your customers use. You may find that your customers use Pinterest and Instagram but don’t use Twitter. Thus, it wouldn’t make sense to spend too much time on Twitter. Knowing this information will let you know which social networks to prioritize instead of just guessing.

28. Are you active in any LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups, or other online communities?

This question can help point out which communities to follow and participate in. Participating in these communities will allow you to naturally interact with customers one-on-one and even promote content.

29. Are there any YouTube channels in X industry that you subscribe to?

This question can help identify top YouTube channels in your industry. There may be opportunities to advertise on the channel or to sponsor the channel.

30. Where do you spend the most time online?

This question will identify the places your customers hang out online. If they spend the majority of their time on social media, you’ll know that marketing and advertising on those networks will be a priority when it comes to attracting your target audience.

Employee Satisfaction
Survey Questions

Use employee-satisfaction questions to gauge the overall happiness of your employees. A happy employee is one who feels accomplished, valued, and appreciated. These questions will help you identify if your company needs to make changes in any of these areas.

31. Would you recommend a friend or colleague to work at our company? Why?

This question can demonstrate how happy an employee is to work at your company. It can also help you gauge how positive the culture/environment is to work in.

32. During a typical week, how often do you feel stressed at work?

This question can help identify if too much work is being placed on employees and whether additional staff may be needed.

33. How well are you paid for the work you do?

This question will identify if employees feel they are being compensated fairly. Employees that don’t feel they’re being paid enough are more likely to leave the company.

34. If you were to quit tomorrow, what would your reason be?

This question can help identify the biggest problem areas in your organization.

35. Do you feel there is room for professional growth/advancement within our company?

This question will let you know if employees feel they have reached their limits at your company and might move on soon. It might also be an indicator that you haven’t clearly defined the path for growth at your company.

36. Do you see yourself working here one year from now?

This question ties into the one above. If there’s no room for growth, employees will be more likely to leave the company. This question might also identify problem areas in your company. If a lot of employees say they aren’t planning to stick around, it could indicate incompetent management or a poor work culture.

37. Has your manager given you any recognition in the past two weeks?

People want to feel recognized for their accomplishments. If it’s been too long since an employee has been recognized for their efforts, they may feel unappreciated. This question can help to identify if management is congratulating employees for their work.

38. How proud are you of your employer’s brand?

This question will help speak to the culture at your company. If employees are happy at their company and feel like they are doing something valuable, they will be proud to work at the company. If a lot of people answer provide negative answers to this question, you’ll know there is a problem with your work culture.

39. On a scale from 0-10, how meaningful do you believe your work is?

This question will help to identify if employees feel like the work they are doing is valuable. If an employee doesn’t feel they are making a difference and/or are no longer continuing to grow at a company, they’re more likely to leave.

40. Have you noticed your job taking a toll on your personal life?

It’s important to have work-life balance. If your employee’s work is taking over their lives, they will be more likely to leave the company. Answers to this question can indicate whether or not you're placing too much work on employees.

Customer Service
Survey Questions

We’ve broken customer-service questions into two sections: post-purchase and post-support. Use the questions to gain feedback from customers about the quality of your products or the effectiveness of your customer support.

Post-Purchase Survey Questions

Post-Purchase questions are meant to be asked after a purchase. Use them immediately after a purchase on a webpage or via email. Or, send them after a specified amount of time—so customers have a chance to use your product first.

41. Why did your purchase from our company?

This question can help identify what factors set you apart from your competitors as seen by your customers.

42. How did you find our website?

This question will help you identify which marketing outlets are working best for your company. For example, if most of your customers found your website through Google, it might make sense to invest more resources into creating content for search.

43. Was it easy to find the products you wanted?

This question will help you identify if your website is easy to navigate.

44. Are you satisfied with the product or service you ordered?

This question will help you understand the perceived quality and value of your product. If a lot of customers aren’t satisfied after their purchase, you’ll know there are some issues that need to be addressed. If many customers are satisfied, they will be more likely to make repeat purchases from your company.

45. How can we improve our purchase process?

This question gets straight to the point and asks your customers directly what they think you could do better. Answers here might include offering certain payment methods or making your checkout process faster.

Post-Chat or Post-Support Survey Questions

Post-Chat or Post-Support questions are meant to be asked after a support interaction. Use them gauge the effectiveness of your customer service team.

46. Was your issue resolved as a result of this chat, phone call, or email?

This question will identify if your support team is able to help customers with their problems.

47. How long did you have to wait before speaking to a support member?

This question will help to identify how long customers have to wait before speaking with support and if they’re waiting too long. If they are, you may need to adjust your process or hire more support members.

48. How satisfied are you with the support you received?

Again, this question is straight to the point. It will identify if customers are able to get answers to their questions or solutions for their problems. It can also identify the type of language your support team members are using. If you have a lot of customer responses that were dissatisfied with support, it could mean an employee is being rude to customers or simply not very helpful.

49. What type of support communication methods do you prefer?

This question will help to identify what communication methods to prioritize and where to place support team members.

50. How could we improve our customer service?

This open-ended question will allow customers to offer their own suggestions for improving your process. Leaving the question open-ended may result in customers bringing up problem areas you weren’t even aware of.